# Isn't Islam a wonderful religion? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 31, 2026, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240 "2026-01-31T19:36:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/101 "2026-02-01T14:45:45Z")
I have worked directly with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, atheists, Protestants, and Catholics. Nobody gave a shit about anyone else’s faith and we all got along. The terrorists of 9/11 no more represented Islam than Stephen Miller represents Christianity. If you want to point to barbaric laws in Muslim countries or portions of countries, it wasn’t that long ago that Christian nations executed people for theft or adultery or homosexuality. You can’t point to small numbers of an incredibly large group and use that to justify bigotry and hatred. But we see people do that every day- I often see assholes posting on Facebook pictures of people supposedly murdered by “illegals” and using that to absolve the ICEtapo of any reason to feel guilty about executing people in the street. We have people who would gladly rebuild the Auschwitz gas chambers in the US (or more cowardly, in El Salvador) and send undocumented immigrants there. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/102 "2026-02-01T14:57:26Z")
I’m not going to post again in this thread or give it a second thought unless the OP tags me and publicly apologizes for calling my faith a mental illness when I have a mental illness that turns me into a racist, suicidal, homicidal maniac on my worst days. V You can just fuck off straight to Hell with that attitude. Literally, in _your_ case. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/103 "2026-02-01T15:17:49Z")
Incidentally, how many of you have actually _read_ the Koran? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/104 "2026-02-01T15:27:49Z")
Inquisitively, how deep are you intending to dig your hole? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/105 "2026-02-01T15:30:14Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > All right. Tell us what you, personally, think about the incident reported in the original link. What if I just quote what somebody said about what they personally think about the incident? > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > in this Muslim-majority country, one province has a super fucked up criminal code > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > this is a horrible perversion of justice I agree with what that person said _in their very first post in the thread_–and also agree with their calling you a bigot. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/106 "2026-02-01T15:52:05Z")
I have read most of the Koran. I used to play a game, opening a Koran, a Torah, and the New Testament at random and reading a paragraph. Yes, there’s a lot in the Koran about conquering and killing the infidels. And an awful lot is excruciating details about exactly how much of what wood was purchased from where to build the temple in Jerusalem in the Torah. You know what, every religious person in the world reads their holy books selectively, no matter what they claim about it. Christianity has fairly uplifting core texts, and yet they used those texts to justify perpetrating the crusades, the inquisition, and lots of pograms against the Jews. And other people read the same texts and decided they had a moral imperative to free America’s slaves. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/107 "2026-02-01T16:05:38Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > Incidentally, how many of you have actually _read_ the Koran? Okay. I’m back @xtenkfarpl What country are you from? ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/108 "2026-02-01T16:06:50Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > You know what, every religious person in the world reads their holy books selectively, no matter what they claim about it. This is certainly true. I am about halfway through the Koran (in translation of course) at the moment. If I’m going to be accused of ignorance of Islam, I will at least partially remedy that by going to the source. Of course I guess there are as many interpretations of the Koran as there are of the Bible. Which I know pretty well, having been brought up in a Church of England primary school where it was a primary reading text. Not that I am religious these days, but everyone should be familiar with it as literature. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/109 "2026-02-01T16:10:02Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > Okay. I’m back > @xtenkfarpl What country are you from? The UK, originally. Spent several decades working in the US; back in the UK again for the moment. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/110 "2026-02-01T16:11:09Z")
Yes, the only holy book I’ve read in its original language is the book of Mormon. Sadly, Joseph Smith was a terrible writer, and the whole thing reads like a parody of the King James Bible. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/111 "2026-02-01T16:12:20Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > Incidentally, how many of you have actually _read_ the Koran? (Note: A more modern transliteration is “Qur’an”.) I have, for one, and parts of it in the original Arabic. And, not being an ignorant Islamophobic bigot, I don’t automatically equate the harsher-sounding passages in the Qur’an with the entirety of the doctrines and ethos of modern global Islam. Any more than I automatically equate Biblical passages about the slaughter of the Amalekites or stoning adulterers to death or calling homosexuality an abomination with the entirety of the doctrines and ethos of modern global Judaism or Christianity. You are making it more and more clear here that you’re one of those self-professed “atheists” who use their occasional ostentatious denunciations of religion in general as a smokescreen for their real purpose of expressing Islamophobic bigotry. And it’s giving serious post-9/11 flashbacks. I remember a lot of clueless Americans back then parrotting this same sort of Islamophobic broadbrushing smears, right down to the naive _“but the Koran **tells** them to do these horrible things!”_ essentialism. But dude, that was **nearly a quarter-century ago.** If you are **still** trying to pull this sort of broadbrush Islam-bashing under the threadbare cloak of _”hey I’m just a noble principled atheist who’s just SO MAD about ANY theocratic oppression (although I only bother to complain about the Muslim kinds)!!”_, then in addition to being an Islamophobic bigot, you must be thick as shit. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/112 "2026-02-01T16:18:15Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Yes, the only holy book I’ve read in its original language is the book of Mormon. Sadly, Joseph Smith was a terrible writer, and the whole thing reads like a parody of the King James Bible. Haven’t read that one, I suppose I should at least scan through it. I should read more of the Buddhist literature too. Though it;s hard to know what is really ‘authentic canon’ there: it seems that even the earlier writings date from at least a couple of centuries later than the historical Buddha…? ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/113 "2026-02-01T16:19:27Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > > [@ekedolphin](#): > > > > Okay. I’m back > > @xtenkfarpl What country are you from? > > The UK, originally. Spent several decades working in the US; back in the UK again for the moment. Do you believe you, as a Briton, have the moral authority to talk to anyone, anywhere at any time, about barbarism? You were once the empire that the sun never set on. Literally. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/114 "2026-02-01T16:24:17Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > you must be thick as shit. Nice talking with you. > [@ekedolphin](#): > > Do you believe you, as a Briton, have the moral authority to talk to anyone, anywhere at any time, about barbarism? You were once the empire that the sun never set on. Literally. THIS is something that pisses me off. Just because I’m a white male, I’m supposed to be wracked with guilt about slavery? MY ancestors were not slave owners or traders. They were probably peasant farmers, at most; maybe even serfs. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/115 "2026-02-01T16:25:08Z")
Probably. And I’ve never voted for Donald Trump, either, yet he’s committing acts of horrible violence. I’m not asking you to feel white man’s burden guilt. White men colonized America. And we overthrew them, because King George was a tyrant. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/116 "2026-02-01T16:31:49Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > Probably. And I’ve never voted for Donald Trump, either, yet he’s committing acts of horrible violence. No argument with that. I think he’s an incredibly dangerous loose cannon. Not that I could have voted for him, since I retained UK citizenship: but I certainly wouldn’t have anyway. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/117 "2026-02-01T16:44:52Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > You can denounce fundamentalist theocracy all you want, including Muslim fundamentalist theocracy, without deploying Islamophobic bigotry. If you’d sarcastically titled this thread something like _“Isn’t fundamentalist theocracy wonderful?”_, nobody would have given you any pushback on your OP at all. I agree. It’s not bigotry to condemn any particular dangerous or irrationally activist ideology. Bigotry happens when one condemns the entirely of a large and diverse group for having the characteristics of a small extremist minority. The 9/11 hijackers were pretty clearly motivated by Islamic fundamentalism, though there can be a fine line between religious and political ideology. But condemning all Islamic people for that reason is plain bigotry. Fundamentalist Christians can be just as bad, both historically and even in modern times. One of my co-workers some time ago was Muslim, and was one of the kindest gentlest people imaginable. He later turned out to be back-stabbing asshole, but that had nothing to do with religion, and was all about office politics. The world is a complicated place, and so are our relationships with our fellow humans. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/118 "2026-02-01T16:45:29Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > THIS is something that pisses me off. Just because I’m a white male, I’m supposed to be wracked with guilt about slavery? > > MY ancestors were not slave owners or traders. They were probably peasant farmers, at most; maybe even serfs. Are you even **listening** to yourself here? In one breath you’re holding moderate Muslims responsible for allegedly not doing enough to oppose Islamic fundamentalism, and in the next you bristle all over your white fragility because somebody dared to hold you responsible for not doing enough to condemn white supremacism and enslavement of nonwhite peoples. Humph! Why, you as a white person are TOTALLY SEPARATE from the legacy of white supremacy and oppression, yes siree, you aren’t even personally descended from enslavers! 🙄🙄 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/119 "2026-02-01T16:47:12Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > THIS is something that pisses me off. Just because I’m a white male, I’m supposed to be wracked with guilt about slavery? Nope, you should be aware of it, but not wrecked with guilt. And you are under no obligation to being it up all the time. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > > > I could just wish though that moderate muslims might be a little more forthcoming about opposing fundementalist factions. > > This is the curse of being a minority. If you are a white man, no one asks you to apologize on behalf of all white men for the actions of ICE. Or Epstein. I don’t assume you must also be a pedophile and get your kicks snatching 5 year olds if you talk about some other topic without ever condemning those actions. Moderate Muslims don’t like to be wracked up with guilt for extremists in far-away countries, either. And yet, you expect them to constantly do this for you. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/120 "2026-02-01T16:54:15Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > > [@Kimstu](#): > > > > you must be thick as shit. > > Nice talking with you. Aw, did I hurt your feelings by using a personal insult in the **Pit thread that you started** so you could use swears and insults freely? Yeah, we’ve already seen plenty of evidence of your double-standard thinking process. (That said, I will acknowledge that I usually refrain from directly applying insulting epithets to other posters even in Pit threads, and for the sake of my own more stringent etiquette standards rather than any nonexistent violation of official Pit protocol, I’m willing to hereby retract and apologize for that insult. Please do not feel in any way obligated by that to discontinue your prudent resolution of ducking further argument with me.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240.md?page=7)